Graduation Celebrations

The end of the school year brought us three special events. Harrison and Cameron graduated from kindergarten and Mary graduated from 5th grade!

I was late to nearly every ceremony, truth be told. The first one, on Wednesday, was Harrison's . . . just as I was about to enter the classroom the school nurse called and said Mary was in the office throwing up from a migraine, and no, they couldn't keep her until the graduation was over. So I signed her out, dashed her to the car, turned on the air conditioning, and ran back to the classroom. Unfortunately I only caught the tail end of the kindergarten class's extremely cute song and dance from the back, but of the four kids' feet I could see from under the whiteboard, at least I saw Harrison's!

He was so funny before graduation because he really wanted me to buy him a bouquet of flowers. After the kindergarten play a lot of kids--girls!--got flowers from their parents, and Harrison was a bit jealous that all I got him was a high 5 and a trip to get ice cream. I guess he wanted something a little showy-er, so I went to Fresh 'n Easy and got the least pink and frilly bouquet I could find. He was thrilled!

Part of the very cute slideshow. It was hard for me to keep my eyes from welling up and spilling over.

After the ceremony, manly flowers in hand. I'm so proud of how he has grown and matured so much this year! Congratulations, Harrison!

The next day was Cameron's graduation. I determined to be early to this one, and I was. But somehow I got the same position in the room I did when I was 10 minutes late to Harrison's--in the corner in the back. Oi. The good news was that I got to see the song and dance routine from the front this time--it was an adorable parody of Sinatra's "New York, New York". It was so cute to hear those kids sing, "Start spreading the news, we're leaving today, we want to be a part of it, 1st grade, 1st grade!" Ah, I was very emotional that morning because between that and the slide show, I was seriously blubbering into my sweater. I had to tell myself to hold it together because I was in danger of becoming a spectacle, the Mother Who Cries at Everything.

Cameron and his amazing teacher, Mrs. DelGiorno. What a hard worker he was this year! Congratulations, Cameron!

After Cam's ceremony I picked up  Harrison and we went (late) to Mary's 5th grade graduation. I held up a small piece of the wall near the front, which actually turned out to be an okay spot for picture-taking. I was so glad to see Mary really finish and graduate from the 5th grade--with all her absences I wasn't sure she'd make it. It would have been silly to have her repeat though, since she made a perfect score on a standardized test (CRTs) and is ready to move on.

Slapping some skin with some front-row friends, on her way to her diploma!

I'm so glad Mary has had her sweet friend Sara by her side in life. Ready or not, it's on to junior high! Congratulations, Mary Rae!

What a morning! Mary invited friends over for a last-day-of-school party, the twins played with friends, Tyce went to a swimming party that night, and it was a good lead-in to the much anticipated, much-needed summer break.